7

What About God?

The creation-evolution
controversy and U.S. science education. Biblical literalist Ken Ham.
Students at Wheaton College struggle with their faith. A school board
denies a petition to teach special creation alongside evolution.

A. The Creation-Evolution
Controversy and U.S. Science Education

"The majesty of
our Earth, the beauty of life," the narrator begins. "Are
they the result of a natural process called evolution, or the work
of a divine creator? This question is at the heart of a struggle
that has threatened to tear our nation apart."

High school students
file into a science classroom. A newspaper headline--"Collision
in the classroom"--fills the screen. Answers in Genesis Executive
Director Ken Ham gestures with a Bible. "For fundamentalist
Christians like Ken Ham," the narrator continues, "evolution
is an evil that must be fought." Ham says: "Oh, I think
it's a war. It's a real battle between worldviews." We look
in on a crowded school board hearing, and the narrator tells us:
"For embattled teachers in Lafayette, Indiana, evolution is
a truth that must be defended." One of those teachers says
she doesn't think one side or the other will come out a victor.
Then we join a round-table discussion among Christian students at
Wheaton College in Illinois. According to the narrator, these students
find evolution "an idea that is hard to accept." One student
asks: "Where is God's place, if everything does have a natural
cause?"

"For all of us,"
the narrator continues, "the future of religion, science, and
science education are at stake in the creation-evolution debate.
Today, even as science continues to provide evidence supporting
the theory of evolution, for millions of Americans the most important
question remains, What about God?"

Parents and children
fill a church in Canton, Ohio, to hear Ken Ham--but only after a
guitar player leads them in song. "I don't believe in evolution,
I know creation's true," they sing, clapping their hands. "Today,"
the narrator says, "biblical literalism has no more forceful
an advocate than Ken Ham." Millions of listeners, we are told,
heed "his message that we need to look no further than the
Bible to find the truth about who we are." Ham tells his audience:
"I believe God created in six literal days, and I believe it's
important."

This scene makes an interesting
contrast with the scene in Episode One showing Kenneth Miller in
a Roman Catholic church. Evolution clearly approves of Miller's
endorsement of Darwinism, and disapproves of Ham's rejection of
it. This also leaves the impression that only fundamentalist Christians
reject Darwinism. In fact, some of the strongest critics of Darwin's
theory are scientists who happen to be non-fundamentalist Protestants,
Catholics, or Jews (as well as agnostics).

We listen to Ham for
a few more minutes before the narrator says: "Ken Ham is not
the first defender of the faith who is challenging accepted views
of science to justify a literal reading of Genesis. Back in 1925,
William Jennings Bryan capped his long career as a crusader for
Christian values by upholding the State of Tennessee's law banning
the teaching of evolution at the famous Scopes monkey trial. Despite
a scathing attack on his creationist views, Bryan prevailed."

But this portrayal of
William Jennings Bryan is completely false. Bryan did not take biblical
chronology literally; instead, he accepted the prevailing scientific
view of the age of the Earth. This distortion of history is simply
one more attempt to promote the same scientist-vs.-fundamentalist
stereotype with which the Evolution series began.

The narrator says that
anti-evolution efforts following the Scopes trial "had a chilling
effect on the teaching of evolution and the publishers of science
textbooks. For decades, Darwin seemed to be locked out of America's
public schools. But then evolution received an unexpected boost
from a very unlikely source--the Soviet Union." When the Soviets
launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, Americans
were goaded into action. The narrator continues: "As long-neglected
science programs were revived in America's classrooms, evolution
was, too. Biblical literalists have been doing their best to discredit
Darwin's theory ever since."

This takes the distortion
of history one giant step further. It is blatantly false that U.S.
science education was "neglected" after the Scopes trial
because Darwinism was "locked out of America's public schools."
During those supposedly benighted decades, American schools produced
more Nobel Prize-winners than the rest of the world put together.
And in physiology and medicine--the fields that should have been
most stunted by a neglect of Darwinism--the U.S. produced fully
twice as many Nobel laureates as all other countries combined.See
. For more information about Ken Ham's views, go to:

How about the U.S. space
program? Was it harmed by the supposed neglect of Darwinism in public
schools? Contrary to what Evolution implies, the U.S. space program
in 1957 was in good shape. The Soviet Union won the race to launch
the first satellite because it had made that one of its highest
national priorities. The U.S., on the other hand, had other priorities--such
as caring for its citizens and rebuilding a war-torn world. When
Sputnik prodded Americans to put more emphasis on space exploration,
the U.S. quickly surpassed the Soviet Union and landed men on the
Moon. The necessary resources and personnel were already in place;
the U.S. didn't have to wait for a new generation of rocket scientists
trained in evolution.

The history of 20th-century
American science and technology is one of the greatest success stories
of all time. Evolution's claim that American science education was
"neglected" because of the Scopes trial is completely
unjustified. In fact, the claim is so preposterous that it raises
serious questions about the integrity of the entire series.

Re-enter Ken Ham, who
tells his audience that the biblical flood really happened, and
that the fossils we now see were creatures who drowned in the flood
and were then buried in rock layers all over the Earth. The scene
ends with another rousing song.

B. Controversy at Wheaton
College

We drive through a narrow
crevice in a mountain as the narrator says: "If you'd been
told all your life that the billions of dead things in the Earth
got there because of a worldwide flood, the evidence for an ancient
Earth comes as a shock."

The driver of a van full
of students says: "So we do see evidence of change. But how
that change has occurred--whether it has occurred through some sort
of a (as Darwin would have said)--some sort of a natural selection,
or if it's taken place through some sort of a design--if God has
been directly involved in what we see as evolution--that's a bigger
question. I think it's a more troubling question for an awful lot
of Christians, as well."

The students watch a
fossil being excavated as a guide explains that it's about 33 million
years old. "At the Wheaton College science station in the Black
Hills of South Dakota," the narrator continues, "the shock
of the new has started more than one student on his or her way to
an understanding of evolutionary history."

Nathan, a geology student,
explains how he has struggled to reconcile his belief in the Bible
with the scientific evidence: "That's a struggle I've gone
through this year. Where is God?" According to the narrator,
we are in the eye of a storm: "Wheaton, one of the top fifty
schools in America, is committed to exposing its students to the
discoveries of science. But as a Christian college, it is also committed
to preserving their faith in the God of the Bible."

Nathan describes how
as a child he had been indoctrinated in a literal interpretation
of Genesis and taught that evolution is evil. We hear from his mother;
we attend his local church; and we join his family for a barbecue,
where he and his father discuss evolution and the Bible. The son
believes Darwinian evolution is true, but his father disagrees.

Back on the Wheaton campus,
the narrator continues: "Some of the most troubling questions
come, not from science, but from the Bible itself." We meet
Emmy, a student of veterinary medicine, who is wrestling with the
origin of sin, and the fact that family trees in the Bible all go
back to Adam. A group of students sits around a table, trying to
reconcile evolution with Christian beliefs about Adam and Eve. The
narrator tells us that Wheaton students are free to do this, "but
for the professors, open debate on this subject is impossible, thanks
to the controversy stirred up by one man's remarks almost forty
years ago."

At a Wheaton symposium
in 1961, Iowa State University biochemist Walter Hearn said that
the same chemical processes that bring each of us into existence
today could have produced Adam and Eve. A conservative Christian
newspaper spread the word that Wheaton had swallowed evolution wholesale.
This was not true, since Hearn had been only one speaker on a diverse
panel addressing all aspects of the evolution-creation controversy,
but concerned parents and alumni flooded the campus with letters
of protest. Wheaton reacted by requiring every faculty member to
sign a statement of faith (still in effect today), affirming that
all mankind is descended from Adam and Eve, who were created by
God.

"Forty years after
Walter Hearn shook the campus with his shocking remarks," continues
the narrator, "Wheaton is ready to try again." We see
Kansas State University geologist Keith B. Miller lecturing to Wheaton
students about evolution. Miller explains that he wants to present
himself "as a strong advocate for the teaching of evolution
and for the centrality of evolution as a unifying scientific theory,
and at the same time make very clear my evangelical Christian position."

According to the narrator,
"Keith Miller's message to these Christian students is that
all the evidence, from the ancient fossil
record to the latest DNA analysis, compels us to accept the evolutionary
theory in full. But for some Wheaton students, the implications
of our descent from a common ancestor are still troubling."
A student asks Miller how he reconciles evolution with the biblical
teaching that we are made in the image of God. He responds: "I
personally do not believe that the image of God is connected to
our physical appearance, or our origin, as far as how we were brought
into being."

Afterwards, Emmy praises
Miller for having the courage to discuss his evolutionary beliefs
openly. But not everyone on campus is comfortable with Darwin's
theory. Peter, an anthropology student, says simply that if he had
to choose, he would choose young-earth creationism "just because
that's what I grew up with, that's what I'm comfortable with."
Beth, a pre-med student, complains of feeling threatened by people
who think a "six-day creation is the only way to go."
But she still wonders "how God works in us. Where is God's
place, if everything does have a natural cause?" Emmy says
that she came to Wheaton to "be in a Christian environment
where I could think ."

These are poignant scenes.
Children raised in homes where they were taught a literal interpretation
of Genesis go off to college, where they are confronted with evidence
for an old earth and Darwin's theory of evolution. The ensuing conflicts
are very real.

Yet again, however, Evolution
reinforces the scientist-vs.-fundamentalist stereotype by emphasizing
the conflict over biblical literalism, and by leaving us with the
impression that once students begin to think they invariably embrace
Darwinism. In reality, the conflicts we have witnessed here are
only a small part of a much bigger picture. We got a glimpse of
the bigger picture from the van driver, who said it has to do with
design .

From the time of Darwin,
the most significant religious objection to his theory focused not
on the age of the earth or a literal reading of the Bible, but on
his claim that living things are undesigned results of an undirected
natural process. It is Darwin's rejection of design and direction--not
his challenge to biblical literalism--which has provoked the most
controversy among religious believers. By systematically ignoring
the bigger picture, Evolution distorts the issues and misleads its
viewers. We will return to this below.

C. Controversy in a
Public High School

As we leave Wheaton,
the narrator notes that the faith of some of its students is no
longer defined by biblical literalism. "But for Ken Ham,"
the narrator says, "the frequently repeated fundamentalist
expression still holds true: `God said it; I believe it; that settles
it.'" We see Ham conferring in front of a display of toy animals
boarding Noah's ark. "Ham and millions of other conservative
Christians," the narrator continues, "are convinced that
it is the biblical story, not the evolutionary story, that America's
children need to hear--not just in Sunday school, but in every school."

According to Ham, "we
are concerned about what's happening in high schools. We're concerned
about what's happening in the culture. We're concerned that whole
generations of children are coming through an educational system
basically devoid of the knowledge of God." The scene shifts
to a high school corridor crowded with students. Ham continues:
"Ultimately, if you're just a mixture of chemicals, what is
life all about? Why this sense of hopelessness, this sense of purposelessness?
And the reason is because they're given no purpose and meaning in
life."

A science teacher gives
her students instructions about a computer tutorial. The narrator
tells us that this teacher at Jefferson High School in Lafayette,
Indiana, is both a scientist and a Christian. She is also "one
of thousands of high school science teachers across the country
caught in the ongoing struggle between biblical literalism and evolution.
The stakes are high--for teachers and students alike." The
teacher explains that as a child she accepted the Bible as the word
of God, but as a teenager she found that it conflicted with what
she was learning about science. She knew that some of her students
were now facing the same conflict, but she was taken aback when
over half of the school's students--and 35 members of the faculty--signed
a petition demanding the inclusion of "special creation"
in the science curriculum.

Her fellow science teacher
says he thought the students understood the difference between science
and non-science, "and it's fairly obvious to me that if they
did at one time, they don't right now." A student then says
that her teachers claim not to be accepting or rejecting the existence
of God, but when they treat evolution as "the only way"
they are indirectly denying God's existence.

A group of students discusses
the problem, then the teacher says: "I don't know if this is
an isolated incidence of kids just becoming passionate about the
situation, or if this is actually the new creationist game-plan:
If you can't attack evolution in the Supreme Court, then maybe you
can go around and pull one evolution weed at a time to get rid of
it. That's what I'm afraid of."

We move to the National
Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California, an organization
that describes itself as "working to defend the teaching of
evolution against sectarian attack." According to NCSE's Executive
Director Eugenie C. Scott: "People actually don't understand
the issues. People are being told, first, you have to choose between
faith and science, you have to choose between especially Christianity
and evolution. They're being told, Well it's only fair to give both
points of view. It's only fair to teach evolution and balance it
with creation science or intelligent design theory, or something
like that."

Intelligent design theory?
Although Evolution does its best to portray all critics of Darwin's
theory as young-earth biblical literalists--"creation-science"
advocates--intelligent design theory is quite different from biblical
literalism. Intelligent design theory is based on the hypothesis
that some features of living things may be designed. Whether or
not a particular feature is designed must be determined on the basis
of biological evidence. But the theory says nothing about the Bible.
Instead, it includes a critique of the reigning Darwinism--a scientific
critique the NCSE does not want students to hear.

Of course, if something
is designed it must have a designer. In this sense, intelligent
design theory opens the door to the religious realm--a door that
Darwinism tries to keep tightly closed. But intelligent design theory
by itself makes no claims about the nature of the designer, and
scientists currently working within an intelligent design framework
include Protestants, Catholics, Jews, agnostics, and others.

Since courts have ruled
that creation science cannot be taught in public school science
classes, Eugenie Scott and the NCSE lump intelligent design theory
with creation science in order to keep it out of science classrooms
where it might otherwise be included in discussions of Darwinian
evolution. But the differences between intelligent design and creation
science are public knowledge; both The Los Angeles Times and The
New York Times reported on them in 2001. Although Evolution claims
to be committed to "solid science journalism," it completely
ignores these reports. When the Evolution series was being made,
the producers invited some intelligent design theorists to be interviewed
for this last episode. When it became clear that their views would
be stereotyped as a form of religious fundamentalism, however, the
intelligent design theorists refused to take part.See
. For more information about the NCSE, go to:

Scott continues: "Evolution--or
science in general--can't say anything about whether God did or
did not have anything to do with it. All evolution as a science
can tell us is what happens. Can't tell us whodunit. And as [for]
what happened, the evidence is extremely strong that the galaxies
evolved, the planets evolved, the sun evolved, and living things
on Earth shared common ancestors."

But this last statement
mixes apples and oranges. To say that galaxies, planets and the
sun evolved is merely to say that they changed over time. To say
that all living things evolved from common ancestors makes a much
more specific claim. The evidence for the former may be "extremely
strong," but where is the evidence for the latter? Despite
Evolution's promise to show us the "underlying evidence"
for evolutionary theory, it has presented almost no evidence for
the common ancestry claim. One key piece of evidence--the supposed
universality of the genetic code--even turned out to be false.

Furthermore, if this
series is any indication, evolution has a
lot to say about "whether God did or did not have anything
to do with it." In Episode One, Stephen Jay Gould pooh-poohed
the idea that "God had several independent lineages and they
were all moving in certain pre-ordained directions which pleased
His sense of how a uniform and harmonious world ought to be put
together." In the same episode, Kenneth Miller argued that
the vertebrate eye was not designed by God, but produced by evolution.
And in Episode Five, Geoffrey Miller assured us that "it wasn't
God, it was our ancestors" that produced the modern human brain
by "choosing their sexual partners."

The camera focuses on
colored pins stuck into a large wall map of the United States. "Calls
come in from across America," says the narrator, "from
teachers who continue to be accused of locking God out of their
classrooms." Among the teachers who contact the NCSE are the
ones in Lafayette, Indiana.

D. The Lafayette School
Board

Jefferson High School
students carry their petition to the Lafayette School Board, which
listens politely to their statements. One student emphasizes that
"those of us supporting this petition do not advocate the banning
of teaching of the theory of evolution; however, we believe that
the theory of evolution should be taught alongside the alternative
theory of special creation. Let us be taught the facts, so that
we can decide on our own."

According to the narrator:
"For these students, the argument isn't about science versus
the Bible; it's about which views of science will be taught. It
is a tactic pioneered in 1961, when a revolutionary book by Henry
Morris and John Whitcomb used carefully selected scientific evidence
to support the creationist cause." Scott adds: "The Genesis
Flood is the foundational document for creation science. Everything
else has been built upon this book."

The narrator describes
a 1981 Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught alongside
evolution science, and how the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the
law in 1987 on the grounds that it "violated the First Amendment
separation of church and state"--though the Supreme Court also
ruled that "alternatives to evolutionary theory can be taught
if they have a scientific basis."

"Of course teachers
have a right to teach any and all scientific views about the origin
of humans or any other scientific theory," Scott says, emphasizing
the word "scientific." But "one reason why the creationists
have worked so hard to try to present their ideas as being scientific
is so they can duck under the First Amendment."

So Scott is opposed to
presenting views in science classrooms that are not scientific.
As we saw in Episode Five, however, even many evolutionary biologists
consider evolutionary psychology to be unscientific. And as we saw
in Episode Six, even many evolutionary biologists consider memetic
evolution to be unscientific. Why doesn't Scott oppose the teaching
of these views? Why does she support
using this series, for example, as a teaching instrument in public
schools?

We return to Lafayette,
Indiana. The students want to learn the facts so they can decide
for themselves. One of the science teachers feels the students don't
understand the nature of science, because "creation and any
Supreme Being can't be addressed in a science classroom." Another
science teacher says: "In science, ideas are supported by evidence,
and that evidence has to be peer-reviewed, and it has to be repeatable,
and it has to be testable. And creationism is
not that." The first teacher lays the blame partly on
the students' parents, who (she says) don't want them even to hear
about evolution.

The Lafayette School
Board hears the students out, but decides to deny their petition
on the grounds that biological science is clearly defined, and special
creation does not fall within that definition. "The decision
preserved the integrity of Jefferson High's science curriculum,"
the narrator says, "but the teachers know this is not the end
of the debate."

The teacher we first
met at Jefferson High remarks: "I have yet to hear of a case
where they've given equal time in a science classroom; however,
I have heard of cases where they've removed evolution from the curriculum.
And I don't think the three of us would have continued teaching
here had that been the case. I can't speak for them, but I really
don't think as an educator I could teach biology and do it well,
if I couldn't talk about the natural processes that make it work.
To take that element out would be removing one of the--well
the major pillar that supports that whole field of science."

But the students petitioned
their school board to include "the facts, so that we can decide
on our own." They specifically said they did
not want evolution taken out. Why, then, does this scene conclude
with a teacher expressing concern over the danger of removing evolution
from the curriculum? That happened in Tennessee in 1925. The Scopes
trial and Walter Hearn's experience show us that Christians have
sometimes censored evolution. What just happened in Lafayette, however,
was the exact opposite: Darwinian evolution was granted exclusive
dominion over the science classroom, and all discussions of special
creation--including any facts that might support it--were banned.

Whatever one may think
of special creation, there is no doubt that Evolution is spinning
this story to make the victim look like the bad guy. In Lafayette,
special creation was the censored, not the censor. And the censorship
continues: On August 14, 2001, the Lafayette Journal and Courier
reported that a Jefferson High School science teacher had been officially
reprimanded by the district superintendent just for mentioning creation
in his classroom.

Darwinian censorship
is frequently used not only to ban discussions of creation, but
also to block all criticism of Darwin's theory. In 2000 and 2001
Roger DeHart, a high school biology teacher in Burlington, Washington,
was prohibited by his superintendent from giving students an article
by evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, which pointed out that some of
the evidence for evolution in their textbook had been faked! And
when William Dembski, director of a research institute at Baylor
University in Texas, organized an international conference in 2000
that brought together critics as well as defenders of Darwin's theory,
he encountered a storm of opposition and was eventually removed
from his position.

By including the Lafayette
School Board story with its misleading spin, Evolution may be trying
to influence the political decisions of local school boards. In
an internal memo dated June 15, 2001, Evolution's producers announced
their plan to "co-opt existing local dialogue about teaching
evolution in schools." The "goal of Evolution," they
wrote, is to "promote participation," and one way to do
that is "getting involved in local school boards." It
seems that this story about the Lafayette School Board is part of
a strategy to use public television to influence elected officials.See
. For more information on the censorship of Roger DeHart, go to:

E. This View of Life

We return to Wheaton.
A college spokesman says: "Are we placing students' faith at
risk by examining these hard questions? Absolutely. But I would
add, additionally, that there is no such thing as a safe place from
which to hide from these issues. If we engage in the most rigid
biblical literalism, the fact that our students live in a real world
indicates that their faith is always at risk. Christians believe
that our faith is rooted in real happenings in a real world, and
so to try and structure a place or a way of conceptualizing our
faith that insulates us and isolates us from risk is to rob Christianity
of its very essence."

Emmy, the veterinary
medicine student, says she doesn't want to come across as a religious
fanatic. "I want to be educated, I want to be intelligent,
I want to have answers." Beth, the pre-med student, says: "Because
we look for natural causes in things doesn't mean we think that
that's all there is. It doesn't mean that we're throwing out the
meaning of life. We're just studying what God has made, however
He made it." And now that Nathan has accepted evolutionary
theory, he finds that he has the "freedom to say, `Wow, God
is bigger than the box that I may have put Him in.'"

Except for Peter, the
anthropology student who remains a biblical literalist mainly because
he grew up with it, all the Wheaton students we have met think that
biblical literalism is for the ignorant and narrow-minded, while
evolution is for the educated and broad-minded. Presumably, we are
expected to conclude that skepticism about evolution naturally disappears
as people grow up and get educated. One would never guess that a
growing number of highly educated scientists--as we saw above--are
becoming increasingly skeptical of evolutionary theory. "Keith
Miller's message to these Christian students," we are told,
"is that all the evidence, from
the ancient fossil record to the latest DNA analysis, compels us
to accept the evolutionary theory in full." That's a very strong
claim--a claim that many scientists would question. Are we supposed
to believe that the only people at Wheaton who had a problem with
it were the biblical literalists?

Actually, biblical literalists
are not the only people who disbelieve
in Darwinian evolution. Over the past decades, Gallup polls have
consistently shown that roughly 45% of the American people believe
that God created the world in its present form only a few thousand
years ago. These are the biblical literalists that this series portrays
as the only critics of Darwinian evolution. Another 45% or so believe
that things have changed over a long period of time, but that God
guided the process. This might be called "evolution" in
the broad sense of "change over time," but it is certainly
not Darwinian evolution. Only about 10% of Americans subscribe to
Darwin's theory that all living things--including us--are undesigned
results of undirected natural processes. So Darwinian evolution
is actually embraced by only a small minority of the American people.

So out of the vast spectrum
of the world's religious beliefs, Evolution gives voice only to
biblical literalists--whom it dismisses as uneducated and doctrinaire--and
to the small minority of Christians who subscribe to Darwin's theory.
The series completely ignores the hundreds of millions of other
Christians--not to mention Muslims, Hindus, and orthodox Jews--who
reject the Darwinian doctrine that all living things--including
us--are undesigned results of undirected natural processes. We have
seen how shallow and lopsided Evolution can be in its presentation
of controversies among evolutionary biologists. But its presentation
of the evolution-creation controversy is even worse.

As the sun sets over
the Pacific, the narrator brings the eight-hour series to a fitting
close, quoting from the conclusion of Darwin's The Origin of Species:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms
or into one; . . . from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful . . . have been, and are being, evolved."

Evolution began with
the Bible, and now it ends with the Creator. Despite the producers'
assurance that they would avoid "the religious realm,"
Evolution has had a great deal to say about it. The first episode
dealt with religion extensively, Episodes Two and Six touched on
it briefly, Episode Five mentioned it repeatedly, and this final
episode was devoted to it entirely. Far from avoiding it, Evolution
has spoken to the religious realm from start to finish.

And what did it say about
religion? The message is unmistakable. As far as Evolution is concerned,
it's OK for people to believe in God, as long as their beliefs don't
conflict with Darwinian evolution. A religion that fully accepts
Darwin's theory is good. All others are bad.

Notes

.
For more information about Ken Ham's views, go to:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home.asp

The usual stereotype
of the Scopes trial comes, not from the 1925 trial itself, but from
the 1960 motion picture, "Inherit the Wind." The differences
between the two are described in Edward J. Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning
book, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing
Debate over Science and Religion (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

The years during
which Evolution claims U.S. public science education was "neglected"
due to censorship of Darwinian evolution extended from 1925 (the
year of the Scopes trial) to 1957 (the year of Sputnik). There would
have been a slight delay in the effect of the Scopes trial on high
school students--the first graduating class after the trial was
Spring 1926, and the claimed effect would presumably have increased
thereafter; so the thirty years from 1927 to 1957 are the crucial
ones. A sampling of twentieth-century U.S. Nobel science laureates
shows ages ranging from 30s to 70s, with an average age in the mid-50s.
A 55-year-old would have gone through high school about four decades
years earlier; so high school students from the period 1927-1957
would, on average, have won Nobel Prizes from 1967-1997.

Between 1967
and 1997, prizes were awarded as follows:

Category

United States

All other countries

Physics

40

28

Chemistry

30

27

Physiology/Medicine

48

24

Total

118

79

Note that in
physiology and medicine, the fields (according to Evolution) most
likely to be adversely affected by neglecting Darwin's theory, U.S.
scientists won twice as many Nobel Prizes during this period as
all other countries put together.

.
For more information about the NCSE, go to:

http://www.natcenscied.org/

For stories
about the controversy in Lafayette, Indiana, consult the local newspaper,
the Journal-Courier (stories are archived for 14 days) at:

Also see the
following: Access Research Network, Frequently Asked Questions about
Intelligent Design:

http://www.arn.org/id_faq.htm

Mark Hartwig,
"The World of Design," Teachers in Focus (September, 2000):

http://www.arn.org/docs/hartwig/mh_worldofdesign.htm.

For a recent
journalistic report on intelligent design theory, see Teresa Watanabe,
"Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator,"
The Los Angeles Times (March 25, 2001), 1. Watanabe wrote: "Unlike
biblical literalists who believe God created the world in six days,
most theorists of intelligent design are reputable university scholars
who accept evolution to a point. But they question whether Darwinist
mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection can fully account
for life's astonishing complexity. Instead, using arguments ranging
from biochemistry to probability theory, they posit that some sort
of intelligence prompted the unfolding of life--say, by producing
the information code in the DNA."

See also James
Glanz, "Darwin vs. Design: Evolutionists' New Battle,"
The New York Times (April 8, 2001), 1. Glanz wrote: "Evolutionists
find themselves arrayed not against traditional creationism, with
its roots in biblical literalism, but against a more sophisticated
idea: the intelligent design theory. Proponents of this theory,
led by a group of academics and intellectuals and including some
biblical creationists, accept that the earth is billions of years
old, not the thousands of years suggested by a literal reading of
the Bible. But they dispute the idea that natural selection, the
force Darwin suggested drove evolution, is enough to explain the
complexity of the earth's plants and animals. That complexity, they
say, must be the work of an intelligent designer."

.
For more information on the censorship of Roger DeHart, go to:

http://www.arn.org/docs/pearcey/np_world-creationmythology62400.htm

http://www.discovery.org/news/someTeachersTalkAlternativ.html

For more information
on the Baylor controversy surrounding William Dembski, go to:

http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_dallasobserver0101.htm

http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/14.4docs/14-4pg54.html

http://www.fsf.vu.lt/filk/mps/Being%20Methodologically%20Correct.htm

On June 15,
2001, the producers of Evolution distributed an internal memo to
PBS affiliates entitled "The Evolution Controversy: Use It
Or Lose It." Among other things, the memo listed under "Key
Evolution Marketing" several Project Outreach goals, one of
which was to "co-opt existing local dialogue about teaching
evolution in schools." Under "Project Messaging,"
the memo listed "the six most important messages we can convey."
One of these was: "The goal of Evolution is to create a dialogue
and promote participation. . . . Participation can occur in many
ways: watching the TV series, logging on the Web site, helping with
kids' science homework, getting involved in school board meetings,
cleaning up your local environment, and countless other activities
that further science literacy and our understanding of the natural
world."

.
The quotations from Huston Smith are from "Huston Smith Replies
to Barbour, Goodenough, and Peterson," Zygon 36, No. 2 (June,
2001), 223-231. See also Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters: The
Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief (New York: Harper
Collins, 2001). Huston Smith is the author of The World's Religions
(New York: Harper, 1992).